Dow Dips 6.25 in Quiet Post-Christmas Session

Stocks weakened late today in an extremely light post-Christmas session that brokers called a symptom of the sickly trading volumes and underlying pessimism suffered by the market through much of the year.

The Dow Jones average of 30 industrials fell 6.25 points to close at 2,162.68.

Declining issues outnumbered advances by more than 7 to 5 on the New York Stock Exchange, with 792 down, 544 up and 600 unchanged.

Big Board volume totaled 87.49 million shares, against 81.76 million in the previous session.

The NYSE’s composite index fell 0.48 to 155.58.

Most large-scale institutional investors were not participating and those that were limited their transactions to end-of-year portfolio adjustments and a few speculative takeover situations.

“The only thing I can say is the institutions are just sitting back. They’re happy they’re going to get out of the year without any disastrous crashes like we had last year,” said Philip C. Puccio, senior vice president and manager of institutional trading at Dillon Read & Co. in New York. “It’s very tough to get the institutions to do anything in the few sessions left.”

Bond Market Depressed

The bond market started the week on a slightly depressed note.

The Treasury’s bellwether 30-year bond lost about 3/8 point, or $3.75 for every $1,000 in face value, by midday. Its yield, which moves inversely to its price, rose to 8.93% from 8.90% Friday.

The financial markets were closed Monday in observance of Christmas.

The federal funds rate, the interest on overnight loans between banks, was quoted at 8.75%, down from 8.813% Friday.